Generally speaking, Hollywood horror over the last few years isn't been considered very good amongst horror fans. I'd say that calling it the "Syfy" of horror would be an insult to the "Syfy Channel originals".

Thus whenever one is shown at a horror festival, meaning horror fans thought it should be watched by other horror fans, that makes me as skeptical as someone who'd just heard of a Syfy-commissioned film being Oscar-nominated; however with this one it succeeds at doing what its supposed to do.

1 - I was actually disturbed. The horror genre gets its named from a negative emotional reaction, but generally Hollywood horror fails in making the audience feel anything. The crew behind "Sinister" actually knew what the point of a horror movie is.

2 - The entity is utterly sadistic. Infusing a character without any lines with any personality whatsoever is probably the highlight of Hollywood scriptwriting this year.

3 - Although Hollywood (not just the horror films they make) frequently don't give the lead characters (usually the biggest "names" in the cast, incidentally) much personalty, here Ethan Hawke is playing an actual character.

"Sinister"'s general public wide release is on October 5th, apparently.

Due to my habit of tearing into Hollywood horror I figured I'd better admit when they produce one that's actually good.

Just saw a preview for this one tonight, and I am genuinely excited. That's saying something, because I've been disappointed with each horror flick I've gone to the theater for this year. It looked creepy.

I'm not often interested in seeing horror films, however, this one caught my attention. Not because of the premise or anything, but because of the screenwriter named C. Robert Cargill. Know who he is? If you are familiar with Spill.com, he was the former reviewer known as Carlyle, who I am a big fan of. I want to see what one of my favorite reviewers did for his first movie and what even a film critic would do with writing a film.

I'm not often interested in seeing horror films, however, this one caught my attention. Not because of the premise or anything, but because of the screenwriter named C. Robert Cargill. Know who he is? If you are familiar with Spill.com, he was the former reviewer known as Carlyle, who I am a big fan of. I want to see what one of my favorite reviewers did for his first movie and what even a film critic would do with writing a film.

Yeah, I find his reviews to generally be quite entertaining as well. I read him on Ain't It Cool news as Massawyrm. That was a major reason I was a little interested as well. I'll probably check it out at a matinee.

And so I just got back from Sinister over an hour ago and here's what I think:

I think it's a very good film. I believe it does atmospheric horror pretty well and I think it actually handled the jump scares it did have rather well (huge step up from Lady in Black I saw earlier this year). I'm not going to say much else, but I think you guys should check it out. Warning, the ending is... predictable so that was a bit of a bummer.

Yeah, agree on the ending. I also think it got a bit... Obvious in the last third with certain supernatural characters. Still, there's some real creepiness to the film, and some intelligent writing. And Ethan Hawke is an actual character, rare for horror movies these days. Definitely worth a watch.